Friday, 6 July 2012

HUNTING IN PIANO TERRITORY: WILLEM DAFOE IS THE HUNTER

Willem Dafoe is the
eponymous hunter, sent to Tasmania to follow up on reported sightings
of the last Tasmanian Tiger—a species of wolf believed to be
extinct since the last known tiger died in captivity in 1936. Dafoe
has been sent by a biotech company that wants extracts from the
tiger's glands, and then wants it eliminated. When he arrives in
Tasmanian he's met by a local guide (Sam Neill) and set up in lodging
with Lucy (Frances O'Connor) living in a drug-addled haze since her
husband, a zoologist, disappeared in the wilderness searching for
that same tiger. She's got two kids, adept at looking after
themselves—the younger of whom, a boy called Bike, doesn't speak.
Dafoe of course keeps the nature of his hunt secret, but he's also
landed in the middle of a dispute over protecting the forests from
lexploitation, and is assumed to be another ecologist by the local
loggers.

There is a lot to like
in this quiet drama, not least the way director Daniel Nettheim and
DP Robert Humphreys use the landscape to reflect the story—not only
the struggles against the harsh territory, but also the isolation of
the characters (particularly Dafoe's Hunter) and the mysteries of the
tiger itself. As Dafoe gets drawn closer and closer to the family, he
becomes suspicious of the husband's disappearance, and of his own
mission, and eventually he too will become hunted, the metaphor of a
'last of his species' kind of extinction never far from our minds.

It's a slow burning
film, which apparently reflects the pace and mood of its source
novel, by Australian Julia Leigh, which won the Betty Trask award. It
was originally adapted by Nettheim and Wain Fimeri before Alice
Addison wrote the screenplay. Apparently the result is somewhat
different from the book, which I haven't read, so I can't say
whether the film is more tragic or less so. But sometimes the film gets trapped in a sort of nether-zone between wilderness family drama and international conspiracy thriller, with the former generally winning out, but only nudging along.

There's a lot of
suspense, some ambiguity, and the opportunity for double-cross;
though Neill's presence is virtually a give-away from the start. It's
odd the way internet coverage can be good and phone coverage bad at
the same time, and whole sub-plot with unfriendly locals doesn't go
very far. But it's biggest flaw is that when the suspense is finally
broken, it happens off-stage, and that dilutes its impact. It does
build to another climax, and then a touching coda that seems
completely impractical, but I can't an audience by that point
worrying about the details. O'Connor's performance is first rate,
holding in emotions almost as strongly as Dafoe. She reminds me of a young Barbara Hershey (and in this film, the Barbara Seagull version might be closer), but her part, if anything is understated; her character is never able to fully engage with Dafoe's, which is part of the point, but which ought to be, in contrast with her husband, driving the film. The young actors, . Finn Woodlock as
Bike and Morgana Davies as his sister Cass are both very good.

Dafoe and the landscape
are the real stars, however, and both are excellent. But in the end I
kept feeling like I was watching a less-prententious but almost as self-consciously arty revisiting of The Piano, with the
mother in a daze and the child not speaking, and the man who's gone
native replaced with the man who learns to go native. And whether
this was simply an instinctive reaction by the adapters, or something
lodging in the novel. Either way, this element of familiarity, this
suggestion that muteness may be the only way to avoid adapting to the
landscape, this sense that maybe the it's trying too hard to be sensitive, is the only thing that stopped my liking this likeable
film even more.

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